Josephine Platner Shear

Josephine Platner Shear (July 3, 1901 — February 11, 1967) was an American classical archaeologist and numismatist.

Early life and education

Shear was born on July 3, 1901, in Omaha, Nebraska. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1924 and her M.A. from Columbia University, New York, in 1928.

Career

Shear was a fellow at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens from 1939-40. She excavated primarily in Corinth but also published on the coinage of Athens. 

In the 1930s, she worked alongside her husband, Theodore Leslie Shear, a Princeton professor, at an archaeological dig in Athens, Greece. There, she discovered a 2nd-century C.E. Athenian coin previously unknown to scholars that commemorated reconciliation between the ancient Greek cities of Athens and Megara.

Personal life

In 1931, Shear married Theodore Leslie Shear, a professor of classical archaeology at Princeton University (best known for his excavation of an ancient marketplace in Athens.) They had one child, Theodore Leslie Shear, Jr. (1938), who also became an archaeologist.

After the death of her husband in 1945, she continued to live in Princeton and in 1955 married Floyd C. Harwood.

Selected publications

• Out of the Tombs at Corinth. In: Art & Archaeology 29, 1930, S. 195–202. 257–286.
• Tomb Excavations at Corinth, 1930. In: Art & Archaeology 31, 1931, S. 153–160. 225–234.
• The Coins of Athens. In: Hesperia 2, 1933, pp. 231-278.
• Athenian Imperial Coinage. In: Hesperia 5, 1936, S. 285–332 (Volltext).

Death

Shear died on February 11, 1967, in Princeton, New Jersey. He was 65.